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Category Archives: social media
As social networks increase so does your margin for error
This is a cautionary tale that I’ve been thinking about for awhile. Having noticed how much social networks and communities have grown exponentially recently, I’ve noticed that people do things within the context of what we consider New Media, i.e. social networks, and then ultimately regret it later.
The evidence is everywhere. We see the demise of relationships, axes to grind, pure anger, mob mentalities, bruised egos, bitterness, love, hate, and fraud all played out in glorious real time and beyond, thanks to digital footprints.
Some groups seem to be more comfortable with this aspect of Web 2.0 than others. Gen Y and millenials are used to, and comfortable with leaving their mark. They’re comfortable with the ability to express free form raw emotion on their social nets of choice. So much so that they take on the characteristics of an animal marking its territory. They do not care about the repercussion of what they do online. It’s all they know and it’s almost expected and assumed by their peers
Why do they continue to push the envelope? Why do they do “it” knowing that there could be major reverb from it? Some do not care and they are looking for the desired reaction and effect.
Maybe for others, they have no idea? I don’t think they do. At least Gen Y and Millenials don’t, nor do they really care at the present moment.
But that’s just one segment, what about the rest of us?
Some of us do it specifically for that purpose, to get under someone’s skin, to challenge and and to poke and prod what people say. Yet they regret nothing and apologize less. But for them, that’s their schtick.
Others do it and have no idea of the ripple effect it may have online. They have zero clue that their actions, their written word, their audio, that video, once it’s online, that content… ceases to be in their control anymore.
You see online, you lose that buffer of physicality. You lose the ability to “take it back”. Your margin to screw up is increasing and you know what? The statement, “Once it’s done it’s done” isn’t true. It ain’t done. You now not only have to deal with “it” when it happens, but you also have to deal with it every time someone finds it. For years to come.
My advice to you is if you want to use social networks as your primary means of communication, be prepared for any and all repercussions stemming from your interactions…. to now be public fodder.
15 reasons why companies may fear social media
Last night I was talking with Rachel Happe and Leigh Duncan-Durst on Twitter and we were discussing the following statement I made:
Some industries have built in fan bases and thus are naturals for social media implementation, so .. why the delay? Fear? Lack of expertise?
Fear of social media. It’s more prevalent than you think. Sure some will say they are waiting for the true ROI to shake out. That might be true, but I doubt it’s the main reason.
Leigh brought up some great points: “Is it Fear? Resources? Ignorance? Unwilling to be transparent?” She goes on to add without mentioning industries, “that some large orgs. are terrified of the VOLUME of feedback and detractors so much they can’t see upside.”
Can you imagine being so burdened with the fear of negative press or negative reaction, that you, as an organization, are paralyzed into doing nothing?
Leigh concludes: “They are just not comfortable with that level of transparency. Turning a blind eye negates the opportunity to turn around negatives…Treat customers with respect, respond – and identifyadvocates too!
Rachel then adds: I think the biggest inhibitor of adoption of new tools is that people are overwhelmed and don’t have time to play with them. Sometimes I think you have to drag people into a room and make them play around with the tools until they are comfortable.
I couldn’t agree with them more! So lets review this. Are these the things that are holding companies of all sizes back from utilizing social media?
- Fear
- Lack of experience
- Ignorance
- Waiting for ROI
- Lack of Resources
- Unwilling to be transparent
- Lack of time
- Confusion
- No Money
- Unawareness
- No expertise
- Lack of leadership
- Terrified of feedback/truth
- The “newness” of it, going to wait.
- High degree of skepticism
What else can we add to this list? How many of these are really legitimate?
Social media levity
In my attempt to add excessive frivolity to all things social media today, I give you this:
The rush of discovery to the head
I came across this preso on a new blog for me called Social Gumbo. Given my New Orleans heritage, it was worth checking out and lo and behold, some sweet content. Check this slideshare out.
10 Twitter Links that mattered to me this week
Below is a quick compilation of links that I received or found this week that I either tweeted or retweeted that mattered to me or to the people that are in the Twitterspehere.
I received this this morning and it immediately raised a question for me in regards to whether Fortune 500’s should be on Facebook, The question:
1) Can Enterprise Social Networks Gain Traction? My point being, perhaps we really need to define or look at what traction is.
2) Came across this and it seems interesting so I’m gonna give it a test drive later Eyejot
3) For job seekers Adobe Acrobat is looking for a part time Community Manager
4) I’m wondering if this should surprise anyone? Colleges are using social media more than Fortune 500 & Inc 500 in the area of blogging…
5) There’s probably a few here I have not used but perhaps you have not used any of these 33 trend tracking tools
6) Mashable came out with a great post yesterday about 40 of the Best Twitter Brands & the People Behind Them And I thought it interesting to see how some use or view the power of Twitter. Who do you think uses it most effectively?
7) Valeria Maltoni and Geoff Livingston did a duel post on Top 25 Ways to Stop Wigging Out and I have to tell you, I might have to tape it on the monitor or on the fridge, because to be honest right now, there is so much happening in all of our lives, I get the sense that we all are scramblin’ for scraps sometime.
8) I got such a tremendous Twitter RT reception for the following Tweet and post titled “Create the change“:
My advice to you is to not wait on Barack Obama 4 change. Create the change yourself, in your own lives
9) How timely and “in the mix” are your tweets? Check out Twitemperature I know, it’s one of those hit and run type of Twitter apps. But still.
10) This is a must think piece here How Twitter Can be Corrosive to Online Marketing
I think I’m going to start doing this on a regular basis, simply because there is so much info that I miss and that you miss, maybe this will help. Send me one that is worth sharing that I might have missed. Educate me, please.
5 life lessons I learned from social media this week
Last night I was wondering what I was going to write about that hopefully someone new or old in the marketing, social media and PR space would understand. It’s been a crazy week but there were a few posts that caught my eye that led me to this topic.
The first was by Todd Defren about the value of modesty in which he mentions that some of the solid thinkers in the social media space are truly humble about themselves and about what they have accomplished. Imagine that? The people that you admire in the space, have no idea how good they are and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not as important, as it is to help others. Humility in social media.
Another post that caught my eye immediately was authored by Steve Radick essentially stating that social media is scary and the reason is, social media gives everyone a voice, whether they want it or not. It can instill fear and it can intimidate. Which made me ask via Twitter if some felt intimidated or scarred to talk to some of the other better known Twitterati and the answer was a collective yes. Which made me immediately wonder if I did and how can I change that? How can you change that perception if it exists? it’s unacceptable so thus I learned about-Fear of social media.
So in 2 instances we have humility and fear bubbling up from social media. I wanted to write about respect and how we, as social media practitioners may not give newcomers enough of that and that stemmed from the following:
I did a vlog on how I was going to start viewing social media differently; and the more I look back at that vlog, the more I realized that it’s not that others have to do anything different it was me. I complain about the echo and the people that repeat things but fail to really consider who might be the person behind it. Or really who is listening? I’ve judged, I’ve deliberated and I’ve executed before even doing any legwork to justify some of my criticism. For that I apologize. Though I still want to see more from both the N00bs and the sage veterans in this space, I certainly see that not everyone came aboard at the same time. And, they’re still coming aboard! I welcome you with open arms. I apologize with all my heart. Contrition in social media.
Lastly I want to tell you about the good in social media and the good that can come from community and how quickly people can open their hearts for others. David Armano for those of you who don’t know him has a friend that you should meet and get to know. I’m not going to steal David’s thunder but if he doesn’t do anything the rest of the year, he can rest assure that what he did for Daniela will have changed her life forever. Impactful. Social media can be love, can be generous and can be impactful.
So you see, even when I said I had nothing to write and was struggling, it was there all along, right in front of me. To be honest, it’s always there, sometimes it just takes the community we’re in to point it out to us in an ever so subtle manner. I thank you for that. and thus I have gratitude for social media.
Time to view social media differently
Last night I could not help but pause and think after every sentence of Peter Kim’s most recent blog post. Even more compelling were the comments that followed. I’d suggest you read it. Because of this and because I had been thinking that it was time to change the way I viewed and written about what I have experienced in marketing and social media marketing, I have decided to turn it upside down.
I want you to start thinking like that now. Instead of repeating everything that you read and just slapping a new title on it and linking to everyone else. Give me your thoughts with perhaps just one or two links. Forget about link juice for a minute and write what you really think about Twitter- Does Twitter piss you off? Are you tired of bullshit tweets? Well tell me. Don’t like what Chris Brogan says? Then say it. I’m not asking you to completely look for the flaws and problems in everyone and everything, I’m asking you to step outside of that and look at things from 3 feet instead of 30,000 feet, and then give me your real thoughts and your perspective. If I’m full of it? Fine, tell me why, and if it makes sense then I will adjust.
It’s time for our discussions and our thoughts to be elevated. I would think that now might be a really opportune time for fresh thinking, what do you think? And for the record, Peter I may be echoing what you have just written but the more people that can spread that sentiment of less echo and more thought, the better.
Social Media could be the savior for SMB’s
6 days into 2009 and I’m sure we all have our goals set or we’re busy finalizing what we are going to do. I make these lists and I write down thoughts at a furious pace and still, in the back of my mind, I’m constantly wondering what everyone is collectively thinking right now. By everyone, I’m really referring to small and medium sized business owners. The economy sucks and business is wayy down..
They have to be wondering where the business is going to come from or how they are going to get business utilizing their existing forms of advertising, sales, and marketing. The problem is, how effective do those continue to be? Were they ever? Do they know they are not working? Do they utilize metrics or do they fly by the seat of their pants to measure their effectiveness? Do they understand that there is more for less out there right now? Or is it less for less? Their heads have to be swimming. I know mine is.
Initially I would have said No, SMB’s are not aware of their advertising, sales and marketing effectiveness, but in that sense I was referring to “as it pertains to social media”, as in how effective could all these initiatves be if they were using social media, and that is completely true. SMB’s do not know much about how social media might be able to turn the tide.The power. The effectiveness. The impact.
But they do know plenty about what is and what isn’t working in regards to their sales and marketing initiatives. I love what Christian Maurer says about this:
In today’s business climate, sales organizations think that they have to increase their activities to counteract the increased reluctance of customers to buy. These increased activities will however not necessarily be rewarded by higher revenue.One might end up trying to get more juice from an already squeezed out lemon
So enter Social Media. The darling of the last few years. We go from product centric to customer centric. But how do you articulate that social media could be just what the doctor ordered? Well I could wax eloquent on that question for awhile but I’d like to refer you to Kyle Lacy’s 4 part series on social media marketing for the small business as a primer. It’s a wonderful piece and more so, it exposed me to a great blog for small business called The Marketing Spot. I highly recommend you add it to your list in 2009.
Ok so back to you Mr. and Mrs. SMB how do you go about learning whether Social Media is the cure for what is ailing your business? And how do you do it quickly because you don’t have time to ramp something like this up. WHAT DO YOU DO FIRST?
-You could try and learn about “It” on your own but you need to know what “it” is. This might help.
-But then after you figure out what it is, you then need to know who you can trust or what to look for in a social media consultant, because you don’t have time to be doing this, right?
-Once you figured out what to look for, then you need to decide “who to look for”
-So now that you have “that” person or agency selected, now you have to have a strategy and they have to share that with you, so that you know exactly what they are trying to do for you and your business.
–A blueprint of how that person works is a good thing to have, it lets you know exactly how they work and it is a key component that we talk about all the time and that’s transparency in social media. Amber Naslund does a great job of discussing her “blueprint” in this post.
-Now that we have the strategy and the blueprint, it’s time to implement. Don’t worry though, your accomplished social media strategist knows just what to do.
OK, so you know what it is, you know what to look for, you know who they are, you know what they’ll do and you know how they’ll do it. But the last thing we have to do is we still have to measure what they’ve done.
-We talk all the time about how to measure social media but here’s a simple framework for measuring it’s effectiveness.
With that in mind, I end with this; As long as you know upfront what you are trying to accomplish and you adhere somewhat to these steps above, you may just have figured out how to incorporate social media into your SMB marketing plan! But don’t stop there and don’t rely solely on your social media expert/strategist. Take the time to learn as much as you can as you go, so that you can understand the sea change that is happening within the worlds of PR, marketing, advertising and communication.
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10 websites to get you started in 2009
In the new year its all about doing what we do better, streamlining it and being more effective, here is a list of websites and blog posts that just might help you get that ball rolling.
Lee Odden whom I respect very much has just posted an article about 6 social search engines. The great thing about this, is that I have not heard of any of these before and I love when there are new shiny things out there that might make what we do better. Let me know what you think.
Contrary to how some of you might use Twitter or better yet, the way you add followers, I like to check out who’s following me before I follow them back. With that being said, Taly Weiss started following me the other day, and as I’m wont to do, I checked out her bio and then checked out her blog site, Trendspotting, This site has so much cool data that it can only help to shape your opinions to make you smarter. I’m glad we found each other.
So staying on the topic of Twitter, if you don’t know what Mr. Tweet is yet, I’d suggest you investigate. Do so at your own risk since it helps you determine who you should follow. You could end up using it all day. But even better, check out Mr. Tweet’s blog too.
And while you’re at it, read this article about the 10 ways that twitter will be changing blog design in 2009. I’m not sure I totally agree with it, but you can definitely see how Twitter is weaving it’sw ay into the fabric of what do online.
I haven’t used this yet but at $139 a year for online computer and technical support, it isn’t a bad deal. Although iYogi led me to think it was a yoga site.
Here’s a great list of the up and coming companies of the 2009 Social CRM/CRM 2.0 Space, maybe one of them might help you or your company?
Profilactic is a social media aggregator/lifestreaming service that pulls together just about everything you and your friends create online, it currently supports 190 social sites.
I came across Ennect somehow somewhere, maybe one of its web marketing components might work for you?
A very good friend of mine Paul Chaney writes a great blog, check out what his 4 goal words are for 2009 and then go check out the company Paul works for Bizzuka
Ok, so now you have 10 sites or blog posts that can jump start 2009. You see if we can’t share the resources that we bookmark, then how else are we going to get better at what we do? I need to rely on you to help me get better. What sites or blogs would you suggest or recommend?
Direct Marketing Observations 